Report

Elitist Britain 2025

This report from UK think tank the Sutton Trust explores the educational backgrounds of leading figures across many sectors.

The six years since Elitist Britain 2019 have been a time of political and social turbulence at home and abroad, including wars, a pandemic, a cost of living crisis, and five prime ministers. Racial diversity and inclusion leapt to the top of the agenda, before becoming subject of a ‘culture war’, while the 2024 General Election saw unprecedented political fragmentation, with many rejecting ‘establishment’ parties on both the right and left.

In light of this volatility, Elitist Britain 2025 explores the educational backgrounds of leading figures across the world of politics, media, business, charity, sport, creative and public sectors.

The report finds that across a range of sectors, the UK’s most powerful and influential people are still 5 times more likely to have attended private schools than the general population. Little has changed since 2019 and the proportion of privately schooled leaders in some professions has actually increased, including FTSE100 chairs, cricketers, newspaper columnists and BBC executives. However, increasingly important online influencers and content creators are more likely to have been state educated than those in traditional media.